 |
| scenes early morning and later afternoon in Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 |
These photos show a few of the scenes at a 1928 neighborhood elementary school vacated by the pandemic so that children are relegated to online connection to teachers and peers. The day begins with crews delivering the voting equipment the day before and then the poll worker chairperson opening the door to fellow workers at 5:45 a.m. to begin setting up the gymnasium polling place starting at 6 a.m. and then declaring "The polling place is now open" at 7:00 a.m. In this case about 5 voters keen to be at the head of the line had arrived a hour before that official start time. But very soon the line ran from the first station (writing name, address, date of birth) for application to vote, all along the hallway and out the door, over the sidewalk leading the roadside and all along that streetside sidewalk for a total length of perhaps 80-90 yards.
There are 2594 voters in this precinct (maximum of 2999 per precinct by law): on this day at this precinct 763 voted in person, of which 1 man did not accept the mask offered him; another had a health condition precluding mask-wearing. All others waited in mask, mostly silently. Some people engaged with their smartphone in texting, reading, gaming, or with earbuds connected for music, recorded book, news, or podcast. The first 2 hours were long, long, long lines socially spaced, requiring about 90 minutes from lining up to leaving the polling place. By noon there was just a 10-minute wait thanks to a helpful "challenger" (party-appointed and registered observer) who called in 6 cardboard booths to supplement the 7 that had been assigned. From noon to 8 p.m. things faded away until just 200 or so arrived in dribs and drabs in those final 6-7 hours. Impressionistically, it seemed like many women under the age of 35 showed up in person and a certain proportion of retired people, too. One of the young women sported a Trump-branded face mask, which is disallowed on the polling premises. So she was politely asked to reverse it, which she did. The seven assigned poll workers never flagged during the 14 hours. When all was tidied up and signatures showing full-day work, certifying all steps fulfilled, and so on, then the chairperson and 1 of the others made the drive downtown to the headquarters to deliver the data and supplies. So their day was even longer than for the others.
In the 2016 vote when there was no pandemic and before Michigan's "no reason absentee" voting, the election DJ Trump brought 800+ voters to this same precinct in person. For the 2020 General Election maybe half the votes (still being counted at DeVos Hall downtown) were early or dropbox or mailed in. So the total number of ballots seems to be more than in 2016. For poll workers 14 hours makes for a long day. When greeted or directed to the entry door, several voters remarked "this is my first time to vote." In some ways the shiny hallway, silent lines, solemn context stirred by in the frenzy of mass media and online-targeted user campaign advertising contributed to the whole experience being quasi-religious or civic ritualistic.
